Look at what is on show!

This year’s exhibition season is now in full swing with the opening of the first of 3 exhibitions in which I’m taking part in the next two months, and the first of two in that same time span for some of my tutored students.

For now, let me introduce you to our selection on view in that first exhibition: the prestigious annual regional art extravaganza the Sefton Open which is currently running at The Atkinson galleries in Southport until Saturday May 31, 2025.

Don’t forget, according to the interior designers who set the trends for us to follow in our home decor schemes, mocca – that warm chocolate coffee colour – is the new ‘grey’ and a colour that will be seen everywhere this season. I have to say that I’m delighted that cold, dull grey is going out of fashion, and even more delighted that mocca is in. An easy way to bring that new IN colour into your home is with a painting such as “Winter Woodland Walk” so why not pop into the Sefton Open and see how it would look hung in your home.

My second piece is in the You CAN Draw and Paint Academy’s group show and is one of a series of sunset and cloudscapes that I have been working on recently. It is based on photographs that I took while out walking my Westie pup one wintery afternoon in Town Lane Woods in Kew, Southport (pictured below).

It is on a section that I call the River Walk . . . unsurprisingly, it’s a walk alongside the river through the woods! As you can see from the finished artwork, the River Walk gives you views of spectacular sunsets with their ever-changing cloud formations beautifully framed by the almost web-like structure of the trees in silhouette.

Now onto my students’ work in the exhibition. Looking at this photo from the private view, I’ll take you left to right from top down:

Top of the left row is Alan Proffitt’s “The Leaving of Liverpool”. He had photographed one of the giant liners leaving the port one evening and did a painting in acrylics of the ship disappearing off into a very dramatic sunset.

The two below Alan’s are the two delicate, incredibly detailed drawings done by Wendy Dixon who is pictured with them. They both have bird connections but are otherwise worlds apart – literally!

The first drawing (pictured above) is of a sunbird’s nest which she spotted and photographed tucked away out of sight when she was on a holiday in Singapore. The second drawing is of a robin redbreast photographed just down the road at Mere Sands. While the Sunbird’s nest was drawn entirely in pencil, the robin is drawn in pencil but has the subtle use of red pastels to highlight that red breast.

The next two paintings in the exhibition are both by Chris Charnock and both in acrylics. The first is a frozen landscape that can make you shiver just looking at it and called, not surprisingly, “Ice Mountain” (pictured below). Her second piece suggests a similar part of the world but a few months further on when the ice has melted. This is “Norway in the Spring”.

The 3rd column in the exhibition is a classic example of the wonderful variety of styles and subjects chosen by my tutored students. At the top of the column is a delightfully humorous mixed media painting by Marie Ward called “Odds On Favourite” recalling the glamour and energy of Royal Ascot (pictured below).

Marie also has a second painting on show with a humorous theme. This time it’s in acrylics; it’s titled “Behind You!” and features Red Riding Hood and a certain furry foe following her.

Below Marie’s first one is Bev Waugh’s incredibly atmospheric acrylic painting of “Summertime Woodland, Eglin” (pictured below). She has captured the effects of light coming through the trees and created wonderful patterns of light and shade as well as the majesty of the trees towering above you.

The bottom of this column, in complete contrast to the other two, is “Portrait of Dad” by Carol Birch. This was Carol’s first, and highly successful, attempt at portraiture and because of its very sentimental nature has been marked NFS. All the other works in the group show are for sale. I really hope that Carol will continue with her portraiture work as this one turned out so well.

In this picture (above) we have Janice Hobson and Val Walmsley, each with two entries in the group show. Janice tops the central column of paintings with her acrylics on canvas of “Market Day in Gambia”. The lady in the centre of the image is turning to look back at the viewer which is a clever compositional trick to get the viewer to follow her into the market. The details that Janice has got in this scene are remarkable and the play of light and shade creates a great impression of a hot day under the blazing African skies.

Her second painting (pictured below) comes from photos she took in Luzzu in Malta. Star of this acrylic show is the fisherman in the foreground reeling in his incredibly realistically painted fishing nets. I can’t see them without thinking back to the discussions in class between Janice and I as to possible ways that she could use to depict those nets. We were both delighted at the results she got from the technique she finally used . . . I won’t give away her secret!

Val actually has a full quota of four paintings in the Sefton Open, two in our group show and two in the Palette Club section.

In our show she has this painting of “St Bartholomew’s Gatehouse” in her usual incredibly detailed painting style and her favourite medium of acrylics. As all my group know, Val gets such precise detail by using tiny, tiny brushes and bags of patience!

Rounding off the You CAN Draw and Paint Academy’s collection are two paintings by Sandra Morrison. “Autumn Reeds” (pictured) is a mixed media scene from the wetlands near her home using watercolour and acrylics.

She also has a wonderful study of violet dahlias in the group show. Then her duo in the Palette Club section (pictured below) includes a favourite subject of a woodland walk and another of her detailed landscapes combining brickwork and stonework with the painting looking through the archway.

Her second painting is also in watercolour but she has added soft pastel to create the fluffy edges of the clouds for her scene aptly entitled “Sunset”.

A number of my tutored group have started trying that combination of watercolour and soft pastel for creating soft edges to clouds since I began experimenting with them in a series of works including the Sunset on the River Walk that I have in the group show. They will also be featuring in the exhibition that we are putting on in May when we take over the ArtHouse gallery in Southport for 3 weeks from Tuesday May 6 to Saturday May 24.

Meanwhile, the Sefton Open exhibition is running until Saturday May 31 at The Atkinson in Southport.

The exhibition features no fewer than 673 artworks from the region’s artists, crafts people and photographers, including 19 from myself and my students.

There are two of mine on show in two different groups and societies’ shows: the watercolour painting “Winter Woodland Walk” (pictured below) is in the Southport Contemporary Arts. It was painted from memories of strolling through the incredible ancient forests around Bagnoles De l’Orne in northern France.